SLICES OF LIFE

All across campus—from the biology and earth sciences departments to the electron microscope facility in Remsen—tiny life forms and other substances take on a whole new look when examined under intense magnification. Here, a sampling of science that can be appreciated as art.

1. From the lab of Sharon Bickel, associate professor of biological sciences and genetics, this chromosome spread preparation shows the meiotic chromosomes in a single fruit fly oocyte—the female germ cell that plays a critical role in reproduction.

2. Another chromosome spread from Bickel's lab, showing an oocyte with two sustaining cells.

3. Cholera bacteria from the lab of Dr. Ron Taylor, DMS professor of microbiology and immunology and a recent winner of a National Institutes of Health MERIT award.

4. Parts of the mouth of a soil nematode from Antarctica's McMurdo Dry Valleys. From the lab of professor Ross Virginia, director of the Dickey Center's Arctic Institute.

5. Volcanic ash collected in 1983 from Mount St. Helens, which is studied by students in earth sciences.

6. Gloeotrichia, a colonial cyanobacterium, more commonly known as blue-green algae. From a study conducted at Lake Sunapee, New Hampshire, by Cayelan Cary '06 for her honors thesis.